'My Wall Street Journal' causes stir

April 14, 2008
by Alexandra Bruell

News Corp's purchase of the Wall Street Journal last year apparently provided satirists with enough content for a parody paper. According to the New York Times, the paper, "My Wall Street Journal," aims to skewer News Corp, its properties, Rupert Murdoch, politicians, and Wall Street characters.

News Corp's purchase of the Wall Street Journal last year apparently provided satirists with enough content for a parody paper. According to the New York Times, the paper, My Wall Street Journal, aims to skewer News Corp, its properties, Rupert Murdoch, politicians, and Wall Street characters.

The paper was prematurely released to select newsstands last week. According to newsstand witnesses, a “Guy who comes by all the time to bring promotional stuff for The Wall Street Journal — bags, coin trays, stickers,” went around to various stands to buy all their copies. Tony Hendra, editor in chief of the paper, told the Times that he had not heard of anyone trying to hoard copies, but it would benefit sales.

The creators' YouTube campaign includes a video of a fake Rupert Murdoch reacting to the My WSJ news.

Also:

The parody continues. In response to recent media carping for its hiring of inexperienced radio and music execs, The Tribune Companymocks itself in a release that announced Marc Chase as the new president of Tribune Interactive. The release said, “this whole thing is a sham” and outlines a satirical career history, including “vocabulary advisorist” for President Bush and “vice president of watching TV a lot.”

Tibet supporters that led global protests against the Beijing Olympic Games pulled off a publicity coup, reports the New York Times. The protesters' strategy sessions and communications plan enabled them to court the media, while China still remains “something of a naïf when it comes to Western-style public relations,” reports the New York Times.

Lonely Planet author Thomas Kohnstamm claims hemade up and plagiarized large sections of guide books, and dealt drugs to make up for poor pay, reports The Daily Telegraph. But his editors responded by denying the degree to which he lied.